Adventure Time’s Marcy & Simon No. 4 teaches: Don’t trust the Devil

If Simon wants to cure his memory loss, he’ll have to come to terms with his own guilt and regret in Adventure Time.

Marcy & Simon cover art by Brittney Williams (Courtesy of Cartoon Network, published by Boom Entertainment)

A central theme of Adventure Time is that you can’t grow without addressing the emotional baggage of your past. The cartoon made this subtext explicit in an episode where Finn fought through memories of his past lives. In Adventure Time: Marcy & Simon, creators Olivia Olsen and Slimm Fabert are tackling that idea too, by confronting loved ones who are also monsters.

Marceline the Vampire Queen has father issues. Last issue she felt forced to ask him for help curing her friend Simon Petrikov. Motivated by jealousy over the pair’s bond, her dad made things worse with a curse, giving the antiquarian a spilt personality. Issue four starts with Marceline shouting down her dad and storming back out of Hell with her foster-father, alongside Finn and Jake.

There are few people Marcy trusts, she’s carried the pain of abandonment for thousands of years and still feels compelled to suffer burdens alone. She has only just reunited with her girlfriend Princess Bubblegum, they’ve worked through their differences and are rebuilding their relationship. True to form, P-Bubs is attempting to deal with Simon’s memory loss scientifically. Psychological health is a scientific discipline, and it seems guilt over Betty’s sacrifice is literally destroying the former Ice King’s mind. He’ll have to confront his lost love, who has become Glob, the malevolent God of Discord.

Marcy is learning to let her friends help. As Simon’s new problem is diagnosed, Finn and Jake remind her that they’ll be by her side. It’s worth noting that over the course of the cartoon series, Jake took longer to accept The Vampire Queen, and here he reminds her, “You’re not gonna have to do it alone this time around.”

Adventure Time Marcy & Simon 4 art by Slimm Fabert, words by Olivia Olson (Courtesy of Cartoon Network, published by Boom Entertainment)

More from Comics

• X-Men: 6 reasons why Marvel’s mutants are the best superhero team
• Harley Quinn renewed for a fifth season on Max (and it’s well-deserved)
• Marvel Comics announces seven important X-Men comic books
• The X-Men were betrayed by Captain America in Uncanny Avengers
• Spider-Man: Miles and Peter team-up for their first ongoing series

This chapter peaks with an honest-to-goodness training montage, followed by Bubblegum outfitting Finn, Jake, and BMO with special tools and weapons that’ll help as the seek Glob through the multiverse. After a perhaps too sugary statement from Bubblegum about the power of love, Marcy and the Princess share a romantic kiss—and it’s about time.

Having Princess Bubblegum wax poetic about love and romance is probably the first time in this series that any character has said something that feels out-of-character. However, considering its the lead up to their romantic embrace, it feels earned. The kiss gets half a page, the couple surrounded by pink waves, bubbles, and hearts–this is definitely a kiss from Bubblegum. Slimm Fabert slam dunks the moment.

The issue ends with this cute fourth-wall breaking exchange between Jake, “Whew! That was a lot of preparation and explanation but we did it!” Marcy, “Right? Like a filler episode before the action-packed climax!” Then the magical dog turns into a submarine for the crew to ride–a cute tip of the hat to The Beatles Yellow Submarine song and movie–as the friends fall through into the unknown.